It has long been recognized that an occupant of a wheel chair can be injured, potentially severely, if the chair is not braked against unwanted motion prior to the applicant attempting to rise out of the chair. This danger occurs because many wheel chair users lack the strength or agility to move from a sitting to a standing position or from a standing position to a sitting position without applying downward pressure on the arms of the wheel chair to assist themselves. Although wheel chairs are equipped with braking mechanisms, these mechanisms are purely manual in operation. That is, the brake must be set by an affirmative motion of either the wheel chair user or the user's helper.
If the brake is not set, at a certain point in the movement from a sitting to a standing position, or from a standing to a sitting position, accompanied by downward force on the arms of the wheel chair, the force applied to the arms of the chair by the user is actually angled toward the back of the wheel chair instead of down towards the surface on which the wheel chair rests. This backward force causes the wheel chair to roll back away from the user, often before the user has gained his balance, causing the user to fall to the ground, frequently injuring the hips, coccyx, or the like.
The purpose of this invention is to provide a means to apply the brake in a semi automatic fashion as soon as the occupant attempts to rise from the chair to prevent such catastrophes as described above.